Background Dicamba is widely used in agricultural production in China, but it is extremely soluble in water and can be harmful to human health when it enters the body via water drinking. It is necessary to establish an accurate, sensitive, and rapid detection method to determine the residues of dicamba in domestic drinking water.

Objective To establish two methods for the determination of dicamba residues in drinking water by high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) and gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (GC-MS/MS) respectively.

Methods The conditions of the proposed method using HPLC-MS/MS included CAPCELL PAK ST chromatographic column, ammonium formate water solution and methanol as the mobile phase, and isocratic elution. The system was operated under multiple reaction monitoring mode and electrospray negative ionization mode. Trimethylsilylated diazomethane was used as a derivatizing agent for GC-MS/MS, and an external standard curve was used to evaluate the system. The residues of dicamba in seven water samples of tap water or secondary water supply from six regions in Chengdu were detected by the established systems to evaluate their applicability and to understand the status quo of dicamba residues in drinking water.

Results For the HPLC-MS/MS, the linear range of dicamba was 1.00-100 μg·L⁻¹, the regression equation was \hat Y =1250.9X+2681.5, the correlation coefficient was 0.9988, the relative standard deviations were 1.23%-26.3%, the limit of detection was 0.95 μg·L⁻¹, and the spiked recoveries were 91.8%-111%. For the GC-MS/MS, the linear range of dicamba was 0.200-10.0 μg·L⁻¹, the regression equation was \hat Y =190597X+40911, the correlation coefficient was 0.9993, the relative standard deviations were 0.64%-3.90%, the limit of detection was 0.18 μg·L⁻¹, and the spiked recoveries were 97.3%-105%. No dicamba residue was identified in the seven water samples of tap water or secondary water supply from six regions in Chengdu by the proposed methods.

Conclusion The two detection methods established in this study are sensitive and rapid, meet the requirements from the detection of dicamba residues in drinking water, and provide an experimental basis for subsequent research on the detection of dicamba residues. In the future, it is necessary to continue to pay attention to the pollution of dicamba in drinking water in Chengdu.